NOTE

This is the draft DBI specification that corresponds to the DBI version 0.89 ($Date: 1997/07/25 11:17:49 $).

* The DBI specification is currently evolving quite quickly so it is
* important to check that you have the latest copy. The RECENT CHANGES
* section below has a summary of user-visible changes and the F<Changes>
* file supplied with the DBI holds more detailed change information.
* Note also that whenever the DBI changes the drivers take some time to
* catch up. Recent versions of the DBI have added many new features that
* may not yet be supported by the drivers you use. Talk to the authors of
* those drivers if you need the features.

Please also read the DBI FAQ which is installed as a DBI::FAQ module so you can use perldoc to read it by executing the perldoc DBI::FAQ command.

RECENT CHANGES

A brief summary of significant user-visible changes in recent versions (if a recent version isn't mentioned it simply means that there were no significant user-visible changes in that version).

Added 'new-style' driver specification syntax to the DBI->connect data_source parameter: DBI->connect( 'dbi:driver:...', $user, $passwd); The DBI->data_sources method should return data_source names with the appropriate 'dbi:driver:' prefix. DBI->connect will warn if \%attr is true but not a hash ref. Added new fetchrow methods (fetchrow_array, fetchrow_arrayref and fetchrow_hashref): Added the DBI FAQ from Alligator Descartes in module form for easy reading via "perldoc DBI::FAQ".

DBI 0.82 - 23rd May 1997

Added $h->{RaiseError} attribute which, if set true, causes all errors to trigger a die(). This makes it much easier to implement robust applications in terms of higher level eval { ... } blocks and rollbacks. Added DBI->data_sources($driver) method for implementation by drivers.

DESCRIPTION

The Perl DBI is a database access Application Programming Interface (API) for the Perl Language. The DBI defines a set of functions, variables and conventions that provide a consistent database interface independant of the actual database being used.

It is important to remember that the DBI is just an interface. A thin layer of 'glue' between an application and one or more Database Drivers. It is the drivers which do the real work. The DBI provides a standard interface and framework for the drivers to operate within.

This document is a work-in-progress. Although it is incomplete it should be useful in getting started with the DBI.

The API is the Application Perl-script (or Programming) Interface. The call interface and variables provided by DBI to perl scripts. The API is implemented by the DBI Perl extension.

The 'Switch' is the code that 'dispatches' the DBI method calls to the appropriate Driver for actual execution. The Switch is also responsible for the dynamic loading of Drivers, error checking/handling and other duties. The DBI and Switch are generally synonymous.

The Drivers implement support for a given type of Engine (database). Drivers contain implementations of the DBI methods written using the private interface functions of the corresponding Engine. Only authors of sophisticated/multi-database applications or generic library functions need be concerned with Drivers.

Notation and Conventions

DBI static 'top-level' class name
$dbh Database handle object
$sth Statement handle object
$drh Driver handle object (rarely seen or used in applications)
$h Any of the $??h handle types above
$rc General Return Code (boolean: true=ok, false=error)
$rv General Return Value (typically an integer)
@ary List of values returned from the database, typically a row of data
$rows Number of rows processed by a function (if available, else -1)
$fh A filehandle
undef NULL values are represented by undefined values in perl

Note that Perl will automatically destroy database and statement objects if all references to them are deleted.

Handle object attributes are shown as:

$h->{attribute_name} (type)

where type indicates the type of the value of the attribute (if it's not a simple scalar):

\$ reference to a scalar: $h->{attr} or $a = ${$h->{attr}}
\@ reference to a list: $h->{attr}->[0] or @a = @{$h->{attr}}
\% reference to a hash: $h->{attr}->{a} or %a = %{$h->{attr}}

General Interface Rules & Caveats

The DBI does not have a concept of a `current session'. Every session has a handle object (i.e., a $dbh) returned from the connect method and that handle object is used to invoke database related methods.

Most data is returned to the perl script as strings (null values are returned as undef). This allows arbitrary precision numeric data to be handled without loss of accuracy. Be aware that perl may not preserve the same accuracy when the string is used as a number.

Dates and times are returned as character strings in the native format of the corresponding Engine. Time Zone effects are Engine/Driver dependent.

Perl supports binary data in perl strings and the DBI will pass binary data to and from the Driver without change. It is up to the Driver implementors to decide how they wish to handle such binary data.

Multiple SQL statements may not be combined in a single statement handle, e.g., a single $sth.

Non-sequential record reads are not supported in this version of the DBI. E.g., records can only be fetched in the order that the database returned them and once fetched they are forgotten.

Positioned updates and deletes are not directly supported by the DBI. See the description of the CursorName attribute for an alternative.

Individual Driver implementors are free to provide any private functions and/or handle attributes that they feel are useful. Private functions can be invoked using the DBI func method (which is currently not documented). Private attributes are accessed just like standard attributes.

Character sets: Most databases which understand character sets have a default global charset and text stored in the database is, or should be, stored in that charset (if it's not then that's the fault of either the database or the application that inserted the data). When text is fetched it should be (automatically) converted to the charset of the client (presumably based on the locale). If a driver needs to set a flag to get that behaviour then it should do so. It should not require the application to do that.

Naming Conventions

The DBI package and all packages below it (DBI::*) are reserved for use by the DBI. Package names beginning with DBD:: are reserved for use by DBI database drivers. All environment variables used by the DBI or DBD's begin with 'DBI_' or 'DBD_'.

The letter case used for attribute names is significant and plays an important part in the portability of DBI scripts. The case of the attribute name is used to signify who defined the meaning of that name and its values.

Placeholders and Bind Values

Some drivers support Placeholders and Bind Values. These drivers allow a database statement to contain placeholders, sometimes called parameter markers, that indicate values that will be supplied later, before the prepared statement is executed. For example, an application might use the following to insert a row of data into the SALES table:

insert into sales (product_code, qty, price) values (?, ?, ?)

or the following, to select the description for a product:

select product_description from products where product_code = ?

The ? characters are the placeholders. The association of actual values with placeholders is known as binding and the values are referred to as bind values. Undefined values or undef can be used to indicate null values.

Without using placeholders, the insert statement above would have to contain the literal values to be inserted and it would have to be re-prepared and re-executed for each row. With placeholders, the insert statement only needs to be prepared once. The bind values for each row can be given to the execute method each time it's called. By avoiding the need to re-prepare the statement for each row the application typically many times faster! Here's an example:

The DBI itself does not mandate or require any particular language to be used. It is language independant. In ODBC terms it is always in pass-thru mode. The only requirement is that queries and other statements must be expressed as a single string of letters passed as the first argument to the "prepare" method.

Multiple simultaneous connections to multiple databases through multiple drivers can be made via the DBI. Simply make one connect call for each and keep a copy of each returned database handle.

The $data_source value should begin with 'dbi:driver_name:'. That prefix will be stripped off and the driver_name part is used to specify the driver. As a convenience, if the $data_source field is undefined or empty the DBI will substitute the value of the environment variable DBI_DSN if any.

If driver is not specified, the environment variable DBI_DRIVER is used. If that variable is not set then the connect dies.

If $username or $password are undefined (rather than empty) then the DBI will substitute the values of the DBI_USER and DBI_PASS environment variables respectively. The use of the environment for these values is not recommended for security reasons. The mechanism is only intended to simplify testing.

DBI->connect automatically installs the driver if it has not been installed yet. Driver installation always returns a valid driver handle or it dies with an error message which includes the string 'install_driver' and the underlying problem. So, DBI->connect will die on a driver installation failure and will only return undef on a connect failure, for which $DBI::errstr will hold the error.

The $data_source argument (with the 'dbi:...:' prefix removed) and the $username and $password arguments are then passed to the driver for processing. The DBI does not define any interpretation for the contents of these fields. The driver is free to interpret the data_source, username and password fields in any way and supply whatever defaults are appropriate for the engine being accessed (Oracle, for example, uses the ORACLE_SID and TWO_TASK env vars if no data_source is specified).

The AutoCommit and PrintError attributes for each connection default to default to on (see "AutoCommit" and "PrintError" for more information).

The \%attr parameter can be used to alter the default settings of the PrintError, RaiseError and AutoCommit attributes. For example:

These are currently the only defined uses for the DBI->connect \%attr.

Portable applications should not assume that a single driver will be able to support multiple simultaneous sessions.

Where possible each session ($dbh) is independent from the transactions in other sessions. This is useful where you need to hold cursors open across transactions, e.g., use one session for your long lifespan cursors (typically read-only) and another for your short update transactions.

For compatibility with old DBI scripts the driver can be specified by passing its name as the fourth argument to connect (instead of \%attr):

$dbh = DBI->connect($data_source, $user, $pass, $driver);

In this 'old-style' form of connect the $data_source should not start with 'dbi:driver_name:' and, even if it does, the embedded driver_name will be ignored. The $dbh->{AutoCommit} attribute is undefined. The $dbh->{PrintError} attribute is off. And the old DBI_DBNAME env var is checked if DBI_DSN is not defined.

available_drivers

@ary = DBI->available_drivers;
@ary = DBI->available_drivers($quiet);

Returns a list of all available drivers by searching for DBD::* modules through the directories in @INC. By default a warning will be given if some drivers are hidden by others of the same name in earlier directories. Passing a true value for $quiet will inhibit the warning.

data_sources

@ary = DBI->data_sources($driver);

Returns a list of all data sources (databases) available via the named driver. The driver will be loaded if not already. If $driver is empty or undef then the value of the DBI_DRIVER environment variable will be used.

Note that many drivers have no way of knowing what data sources might be available for it and thus, typically, return an empty list.

trace

DBI->trace($trace_level)
DBI->trace($trace_level, $trace_file)

DBI trace information can be enabled for all handles using this DBI class method. To enable trace information for a specific handle use the similar $h->trace method described elsewhere.

Use $trace_level 2 to see detailed call trace information including parameters and return values. The trace output is detailed and typically very useful.

Use $trace_level 0 to disable the trace.

If $trace_filename is specified then the file is opened in append mode and all trace output (including that from other handles) is redirected to that file.

See also the $h->trace() method and "DEBUGGING" for information about the DBI_TRACE environment variable.

DBI Utility Functions

neat

$str = DBI::neat($value, $maxlen);

Return a string containing a neat (and tidy) representation of the supplied value. Strings will be quoted and undefined (NULL) values will be shown as undef. Unprintable characters will be replaced by dot (.) and the string will be truncated and terminated with '...' if longer than $maxlen (0 or undef defaults to 400 characters).

neat_list

$str = DBI::neat_list(\@listref, $maxlen, $field_sep);

Calls DBI::neat on each element of the list and returns a string containing the results joined with $field_sep. $field_sep defaults to ", ".

dump_results

$rows = DBI::dump_results($sth, $maxlen, $lsep, $fsep, $fh);

Fetches all the rows from $sth, calls DBI::neat_list for each row and prints the results to $fh (defaults to STDOUT) separated by $lsep (default "\n"). $fsep defaults to ", " and $maxlen defaults to 35. This function is designed as a handy utility for prototyping and testing queries.

DBI Dynamic Attributes

These attributes are always associated with the last handle used.

Where an attribute is Equivalent to a method call, then refer to the method call for all related documentation.

$DBI::err

Equivalent to $h->err.

$DBI::errstr

Equivalent to $h->errstr.

$DBI::state

Equivalent to $h->state.

$DBI::rows

Equivalent to $h->rows.

METHODS COMMON TO ALL HANDLES

err

$rv = $h->err;

Returns the native database engine error code from the last driver function called.

errstr

$str = $h->errstr;

Returns the native database engine error message from the last driver function called.

state

$str = $h->state;

Returns an error code in the standard SQLSTATE five character format. Note that the specific success code 00000 is translated to 0 (false). If the driver does not support SQLSTATE then state will return S1000 (General Error) for all errors.

trace

$h->trace($trace_level);
$h->trace($trace_level, $trace_filename);

DBI trace information can be enabled for a specific handle (and any future children of that handle) by setting the trace level using the trace method.

Use $trace_level 2 to see detailed call trace information including parameters and return values. The trace output is detailed and typically very useful.

Use $trace_level 0 to disable the trace.

If $trace_filename is specified then the file is opened in append mode and all trace output (including that from other handles) is redirected to that file.

See also the DBI->trace() method and "DEBUGGING" for information about the DBI_TRACE environment variable.

func

$h->func(@func_arguments, $func_name);

The func method can be used to call private non-standard and non-portable methods implemented by the driver. Note that the function name is given as the last argument.

ATTRIBUTES COMMON TO ALL HANDLES

These attributes are common to all types of DBI handles.

Some attributes are inherited by child handles. That is, the value of an inherited attribute in a newly created statement handle is the same as the value in the parent database handle. Changes to attributes in the new statement handle do not affect the parent database handle and changes to the database handle do not affect existing statement handles, only future ones.

Attempting to set or get the value of an undefined attribute is fatal, except for private driver specific attributes (which all have names starting with a lowercase letter).

Used by emulation layers (such as Oraperl) to enable compatible behaviour in the underlying driver (e.g., DBD::Oracle) for this handle. Not normally set by application code.

InactiveDestroy

$h->{InactiveDestroy}

This attribute can be used to disable the effect of destroying a handle (which would normally close a prepared statement or disconnect from the database etc). It is specifically designed for use in unix applications which 'fork' child processes. Either the parent or the child process, but not both, should set InactiveDestroy on all their handles.

PrintError (inherited)

$h->{PrintError}

This attribute can be used to force errors to generate warnings (using warn) in addition to returning error codes in the normal way. When set on, any method which results in an error occuring ($DBI::err being set true) will cause the DBI to effectively do warn("$DBI::errstr"). Note that the contents of the warning are currently just $DBI::errstr but that may change and should not be relied upon.

By default DBI->connect sets PrintError on (except for old-style connect usage, see connect for more details).

If desired, the warnings can be caught and processed using a $SIG{__WARN__} handler or modules like CGI::ErrorWrap.

RaiseError (inherited)

$h->{RaiseError}

This attribute can be used to force errors to raise exceptions rather than simply return error codes in the normal way. It defaults to off. When set on, any method which results in an error occuring ($DBI::err being set true) will cause the DBI to effectively do croak("$DBI::errstr").

If PrintError is also on then the PrintError is done before the RaiseError unless no __DIE__ handler has been defined, in which case PrintError is skipped since the croak will print the message.

Note that the contents of $@ are currently just $DBI::errstr but that may change and should not be relied upon.

ChopBlanks (inherited)

$h->{ChopBlanks}

This attribute can be used to control the trimming of trailing space characters from fixed width char fields. No other field types are affected.

The default is false (it is possible that that may change). Applications that need specific behaviour should set the attribute as needed. Emulation interfaces should set the attribute to match the behaviour of the interface they are emulating.

Drivers are not required to support this attribute but any driver which does not must arrange to return undef as the attribute value.

LongReadLen (inherited)

$h->{LongReadLen}

This attribute may be used to control the maximum length of 'long' (or 'blob') fields which the driver will read from the database automatically when it fetches each row of data.

The default is typically 80 bytes but may vary between drivers. Most applications using long fields will set this value to slightly larger than the longest long field value which will be fetched.

This attribute may be used to control the effect of fetching a long field value which has been truncated (typically because it's longer than the value of the LongReadLen attribute).

By default LongTruncOk is false and fetching a truncated long value will cause the fetch to fail. (Applications should always take care to check for errors after a fetch loop in case a database error, such as a divide by zero or long field truncation, caused the fetch to terminate prematurely.)

DBI DATABASE HANDLE OBJECTS

Database Handle Methods

Prepare a single statement for execution by the database engine and return a reference to a statement handle object which can be used to get attributes of the statement and invoke the "execute" method.

Note that prepare should never execute a statement, even if it is not a select statement, it only prepares it for execution. Having said that, some drivers, notably Oracle, will execute data definition statements such as create/drop table when they are prepared. In practice this is rarely a problem.

Drivers for engines which don't have the concept of preparing a statement will typically just store the statement in the returned handle and process it when $sth->execute is called. Such drivers are likely to be unable to give much useful information about the statement, such as $sth->{NUM_OF_FIELDS}, until after $sth->execute has been called. Portable applications should take this into account.

Disconnects the database from the database handle. Typically only used before exiting the program. The handle is of little use after disconnecting.

The transaction behaviour of disconnect is undefined. Some database systems (such as Oracle and Ingres) will automatically commit any outstanding changes, but others (such as Informix) will rollback any outstanding changes. Applications should explicitly call commit or rollback before calling disconnect.

The database is automatically disconnected (by the DESTROY method) if still connected when there are no longer any references to the handle. The DESTROY method for each driver should explicitly call rollback to undo any uncommitted changes. This is vital behaviour to ensure that incomplete transactions don't get committed simply because Perl calls DESTROY on every object before exiting.

ping

$rc = $dbh->ping;

Attempts to determine, in a reasonably efficient way, if the database server is still running and the connection to it is still working. The default implementation currently always returns true without actually doing anything. Individual drivers should implement this function in the most suitable manner for their database engine.

Very few applications would have any use for this method. See the specialist Apache::DBI module for one example usage.

quote

$sql = $dbh->quote($string);

Quote a string literal for use in an SQL statement by escaping any special characters (such as quotation marks) contained within the string and adding the required type of outer quotation marks.

For most database types quote would return 'Don''t' (including the outer quotation marks).

An undefined $string value will be returned as NULL (without quotation marks).

Database Handle Attributes

AutoCommit

$dbh->{AutoCommit} ($)

If true then database changes cannot be rolledback (undone). If false then database changes automatically occur within a 'transaction' which must either be committed or rolled-back using the commit or rollback methods.

Drivers should always default to AutoCommit mode. (An unfortunate choice forced on the DBI by ODBC and JDBC conventions.)

Attempting to set AutoCommit to an unsupported value is a fatal error. This is an important feature of the DBI. Applications which need full transaction behaviour can set $dbh->{AutoCommit}=0 (or via connect) without having to check the value was assigned okay.

For the purposes of this description we can divide databases into three categories:

Database which don't support transactions at all.
Database in which a transaction is always active.
Database in which a transaction must be explicitly started ('BEGIN WORK').

* Database which don't support transactions at all

For these databases attempting to turn AutoCommit off is a fatal error. Commit and rollback both issue warnings about being ineffective while AutoCommit is in effect.

If AutoCommit is off then changes to the database won't have any lasting effect unless "commit" is called (but see also "disconnect"). If "rollback" is called then any changes since the last commit are undone.

If AutoCommit is on then the effect is the same as if the DBI were to have called commit automatically after every successful database operation. In other words, calling commit or rollback explicitly while AutoCommit is on would be ineffective because the changes would have already been commited.

Changing AutoCommit from off to on may issue a "commit" in some drivers.

Changing AutoCommit from on to off should have no immediate effect.

For databases which don't support a specific auto-commit mode, the driver has to commit each statement automatically using an explicit COMMIT after it completes successfully (and roll it back using an explicit ROLLBACK if it fails). The error information reported to the application will correspond to the statement which was executed, unless it succeeded and the commit or rollback failed.

* Database in which a transaction must be explicitly started

For these database the intention is to have them act like databases in which a transaction is always active (as described above).

To do this the DBI driver will automatically begin a transaction when AutoCommit is turned off (from the default on state) and will automatically begin another transaction after a "commit" or "rollback".

In this way, the application does not have to treat these databases as a special case.

The bind_param method can be used to bind (assign/associate) a value with a placeholder embedded in the prepared statement. Placeholders are indicated with question mark character (?). For example:

$dbh->{RaiseError} = 1; # save having to check each method call
$sth = $dbh->prepare("select name, age from people where name like ?");
$sth->bind_param(1, "John%"); # placeholders are numbered from 1
$sth->execute;
DBI::dump_results($sth);

Note that the ? is not enclosed in quotation marks even when the placeholder represents a string. Some drivers also allow :1, :2 etc and :name style placeholders in addition to ? but their use is not portable.

Sadly, placeholders can only represent single scalar values, so this statement, for example, won't work as expected for more than one value:

"select name, age from people where name in (?)" # wrong

The \%attr parameter can be used to specify the data type the placeholder should have. Typically the driver is only interested in knowing if the placeholder should be bound as a number or a string.

$sth->bind_param(1, $value, { TYPE => SQL_INTEGER });

As a short-cut for this common case, the data type can be passed directly inplace of the attr hash reference. This example is equivalent to the one above:

$sth->bind_param(1, $value, SQL_INTEGER);

Perl only has string and number scalar data types. All database types that aren't numbers are bound as strings and must be in a format the database will understand.

Perform whatever processing is necessary to execute the prepared statement. An undef is returned if an error occurs, a successful execute always returns true (see below). It is always important to check the return status of execute (and most other DBI methods).

For a non-select statement execute returns the number of rows affected (if known). Zero rows is returned as "0E0" which Perl will treat as 0 but will regard as true. If the number of rows affected is not known then execute returns -1.

For select statements execute simply 'starts' the query within the Engine. Use one of the fetch methods to retreive the data after calling execute. Note that the execute method does not return the number of rows that will be returned by the query (because most Engines can't tell in advance).

If any arguments are given then execute will effectively call "bind_param" for each value before executing the statement. Values bound in this way are treated as SQL_VARCHAR types.

fetchrow_arrayref

$ary_ref = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref;
$ary_ref = $sth->fetch; # alias

Fetches the next row of data and returns a reference to an array holding the field values. If there are no more rows fetchrow_arrayref returns undef. Null values are returned as undef. This is the fastest way to fetch data, particularly if used with $sth->bind_columns.

fetchrow_array

@ary = $sth->fetchrow_array;

An alternative to fetchrow_arrayref. Fetches the next row of data and returns it as an array holding the field values. If there are no more rows fetchrow_array returns an empty list. Null values are returned as undef.

fetchrow_hashref

$hash_ref = $sth->fetchrow_hashref;

An alternative to fetchrow_arrayref. Fetches the next row of data and returns it as a reference to a hash containing field name and field value pairs. Null values are returned as undef. If there are no more rows fetchhash returns undef.

The keys of the hash are the same names returned by $sth->{NAME}. If more than one field has the same name there will only be one entry in the returned hash.

Because of the extra work fetchrow_hashref and perl have to perform it is not as efficient as fetchrow_arrayref or fetchrow_array and is not recommended where performance is very important. Currently a new hash reference is returned for each row. This is likely to change in the future so don't rely on it.

fetchall_arrayref

$tbl_ary_ref = $sth->fetchall_arrayref;

The fetchall_arrayref method can be used to fetch all the data to be returned from a prepared statement. It returns a reference to an array which contains one array reference per row (as returned by fetchrow_arrayref).

If there are no rows to return, fetchall_arrayref returns a reference to an empty array.

finish

$rc = $sth->finish;

Indicates that no more data will be fetched from this statement before it is either prepared again or destroyed. It is helpful to call this method where appropriate in order to allow the server to free off any internal resources (such as read locks) currently being held. It does not affect the transaction status of the session in any way.

rows

$rv = $sth->rows;

Returns the number of rows affected by the last database altering command, or -1 if not known or not available.

Generally you can only rely on a row count after a do() or non-select execute(). Some drivers only offer a row count after executing some specific operations (e.g., update and delete).

It is generally not possible to know how many rows will be returned from an arbitrary select statement except by fetching and counting them all. Also note that some drivers, such as DBD::Oracle, implement read-ahead row caches for select statements which means that the row count may appear to be incorrect while there are still more records to fetch.

Binds a column (field) of a select statement to a perl variable. Whenever a row is fetched from the database the corresponding perl variable is automatically updated. There is no need to fetch and assign the values manually. This makes using bound variables very efficient. See bind_columns below for an example. Note that column numbers count up from 1.

The binding is performed at a very low level using perl aliasing so there is no extra copying taking place. So long as the driver uses the correct internal DBI call to get the array the fetch function returns, it will automatically support column binding.

Calls bind_col for each column of the select statement. bind_columns will croak if the number of references does not match the number of fields.

Statement Handle Attributes

Note that some drivers cannot provide valid values for some or all of these attributes until after $sth->execute has been called.

NUM_OF_FIELDS

$sth->{NUM_OF_FIELDS} ($)

Number of fields (columns) the prepared statement will return. Non-select statements will have NUM_OF_FIELDS == 0.

NUM_OF_PARAMS

$sth->{NUM_OF_PARAMS} ($)

The number of parameters (placeholders) in the prepared statement. See SUBSTITUTION VARIABLES below for more details.

NAME

$sth->{NAME} (\@)

Returns a reference to an array of field names for each column. The names may contain spaces but should not be truncated or have any trailing space.

print "First column name: $sth->{NAME}->[0]\n";

NULLABLE

$sth->{NULLABLE} (\@)

Returns a reference to an array indicating the possibility of each column returning a null.

print "First column may return NULL\n" if $sth->{NULLABLE}->[0];

CursorName

$sth->{CursorName} ($)

Returns the name of the cursor associated with the statement handle if available. If not available or the database driver does not support the "where current of ..." SQL syntax then it returns undef.

TRANSACTIONS

Transactions are a fundamental part of any quality database system. They protect against errors and database corruption by ensuring that changes to the database take place in atomic (indivisible, all-or-nothing) units.

See "AutoCommit" for details of using AutoCommit with various types of database.

Robust Applications

This section applies to databases which support transactions and where AutoCommit is off.

The recommended way to implement robust transactions in Perl applications is to make use of eval { ... } (which is very fast, unlike eval "...").

The code in foo(), or any other code executed from within the curly braces, can be implemented in this way:

$h->method(@args) || die $h->errstr

or the $h->{RaiseError} attribute can be set on, in which case the DBI will automatically croak() on error so you don't have to test the return value of each method call. See "RaiseError" for more details.

A major advantage of the eval approach is that the transaction will be properly rolled back if any code in the inner application croaks or dies for any reason.

AUTHORS

COPYRIGHT

The DBI module is Copyright (c) 1995,1996,1997 Tim Bunce. England. The DBI module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

This document is Copyright (c) 1997 by Tim Bunce. All rights reserved. Permission to distribute this document, in full or part, via email, usenet or ftp/http archives or printed copy is granted providing that no charges are involved, reasonable attempt is made to use the most current version, and all credits and copyright notices are retained. Requests for other distribution rights, including incorporation in commercial products, such as books, magazine articles, or CD-ROMs should be made to Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk (please don't use this mail address for other DBI related mail - use the dbi-users mailing list).

Use the CGI::ErrorWrap module.
Remember that many env vars won't be set for CGI scripts

How can I maintain a WWW connection to a database?

For information on the Apache httpd server and the mod_perl module see http://www.osf.org/~dougm/apache

A driver build fails because it can't find DBIXS.h

The installed location of the DBIXS.h file changed with 0.77 (it was being installed into the 'wrong' directory but that's where driver developers came to expect it to be). The first thing to do is check to see if you have the latest version of your driver. Driver authors will be releasing new versions which use the new location. If you have the latest then ask for a new release. You can edit the Makefile.PL file yourself. Change the part which reads "-I.../DBI" so it reads "-I.../auto/DBI" (where ... is a string of non-space characters).

Has the DBI and DBD::Foo been ported to NT / Win32?

The latest version of the DBI and, at least, the DBD::Oracle module will build - without changes - on NT/Win32 if your are using the standard Perl 5.004 and not the ActiveWare port.

OTHER RELATED WORK AND PERL MODULES

Apache::DBI by E.Mergl@bawue.de

To be used with the Apache daemon together with an embedded perl interpreter like mod_perl. Establishes a database connection which remains open for the lifetime of the http daemon. This way the CGI connect and disconnect for every database access becomes superfluous.

JDBC Server by Stuart 'Zen' Bishop <zen@bf.rmit.edu.au>

The server is written in Perl. The client classes that talk to it are of course in Java. Thus, a Java applet or application will be able to comunicate via the JDBC API with any database that has a DBI driver installed. The URL used is in the form jdbc:dbi://host.domain.etc:999/Driver/DBName. It seems to be very similar to some commercial products, such as jdbcKona.